But as for envy and jealousy, I think it is
pure, unobservant, antique Cant which has fixed them on the female
character distinctively. As a molehill to a mountain is women's jealousy
to men's. Agatha may have a host of virtues and graces, and yet her
female acquaintance will not hate her, provided she has the moderation to
abstain from being downright pretty. She may sing like an angel, paint
like an angel, talk, write, nurse the sick, all like an angel, and not
rouse the devil in her fair sisters, so long as she does not dress like
an angel. But the minds of men being much larger than women's, yet very
little greater, they hang jealousy on a thousand pegs. Where there was no
peg, I have seen them do with a pin.
Captain Robarts took a pin, ran it into his own heart, and hung that
sordid passion on it.
He would get rid of all the Doddites before he sailed. He insulted Mr.
Tickell, so that he left the service and entered a mercantile house
ashore: he made several of the best men desert, and the ship went to sea
short of hands. This threw heavier work on the crew, and led to many
punishments and a steady current of abuse.
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